The Skriker!

So, here's some work I've been sitting on for a while! It's concept work based off the play The Skriker, written by Caryl Churchhill. My sister preformed in this play and I thought it was so vibrant and unusual I decided to make a little project for myself off it! This was just for fun, and some of the pieces have a lot of photomash, so this stuff will probably just stay here.

If you get a chance to read The Skriker, you should, because it's an excellent play. The very, very, very basic setup is that the Skriker (or Fairie Queen) and her entourage of Fae are stalking two teenage girls, one pregnant and the another freshly released from the mental ward after killing her own baby. The play goes wayyyy deeper than that, with an examination of folklore, of the invisibility of the lower class during the Thatcher era, and the impact of modern life on the environment. If anything, read it for the Skriker's insane monologues!

So let's begin!

Josie left, Lily right. Quite a bit of photomash on this one, since it was mostly costume oriented.

Josie and Lily's designs are based of their respective roles. Josie is the equivalent of the "bad girl" in fairy tales, and was the one sent to a mental ward for infanticide. I dressed her pretty drab, to show her rejection of the colorful fairy world and how life has just kinda beaten the color out of her. Her jacket is reminiscent of a straightjacket, and her Chav hairstyle is braided only on one side, giving the feel of a lobotomy. Lily is a little more brightly colored, showing her more cheerful "good girl" status, as well as begin more open to the fairy world. Her shirt is a little worn, though, and the bland flower pattern is a throwback to hospital gowns, tying her back to her friendship with Josie.

My favorite of the bunch! She was fun to paint!

This is the Fairie Queen, or the Skriker, and the main antagonist of the story, though it's hard not to feel sorry for her at times. She's become obsessed with Josie and Lily, and will stop at nothing to have them.   Because she's so old, a lot of her look was inspired by fossils and patterns in nature. I think she ended up getting kind of a fish look, but maybe that's the spiny wings? She's also a shapeshifter, something I tried to allude to in her design by making her many colored.  She has a baller gown she wears in her fairy palace, buuuut I didn't paint it sooo.... :/

Inspired by Alexander McQueen's Savage Beauty collection and Dior's 2007 spring collection!

The Green Lady was the character my sister played, and I loved her! This fairy is a half-woman, half-goat with a snazzy green dress who lures men into caves with her saucy dancing and eats them (depending on the version). I wanted her to look like someone who appeared alluring and glamorous from a distance, but once you got closer was revealed to be rather decayed and unsettling. Hence, I tied her into nature a little more by adding some mushroom to her goat.

At first I thought the Grimm was a Harry Potter thing, but after this project I learned this guy is prevalent throughout British folklore! See, art IS educational!

The Grimm is a spirit of death who takes the form of a large black dog. The fact that he spends most of the play lurking around Josie and Lily shows these girls are Not Making Good Life Decisions. Initally, I was going to make him more classic werewolf, but since many of the fae interact with the modern world, I decided to go with something that could kinda sorta feasibly pass among humans, as long as it was dark and no one was really looking. Thus, Hobo Grimm was born!

IGNORE MY SHITTY STRETCHED HANDS I WAS TIREDDD

The Nelly Longarms I saw on my sister's play was so out of control and so ENORMOUS she is what initially inspired me to do this project! Drowning must have been common back in the day, because every other British Folklore creature came with the message "STAY AWAY FROM WATER JUST STAY AWAY"! The version of Nelly in my sister's play was spider themed, but I opted for a praying mantis look, since she was known for luring kids to the shore with her awesome looks, then snatching them lighting fast and dragging them under. Moral of the story, kids: If a lady in a fancy dress invites you to an underwater party, stay out of reach. Corset boddess taken from a Guo Pei dress, because I loved the delicate, flowery look of it.





Here's some thumbs of Josie and Lily's apartment, but this piece got abandoned in lieu of doing more colorful, interesting pieces.

A REALLY super early rough concept. All photomash, but I thought you guys would like to see anyway.

Go inside, I'm sure it's fine.

This is the portway to the fairy world I envisioned for the park scene. Since Josie and Lily are from the wrong side of town, I imagined their park to be kinda run down and shitty. The walkway bridge tunnel was inspired in part by In Absentia.

Egh.

Here is the Skriker's Palace, where she tries to trick Josie into eating some of feast and partying with her crew. It's supposed to be super amazing from all the fairy glamour (except where the glamour doesn't stick, and you see you're eating bones or bugs), but I kept mainly to just the awesome. I wanted a palace a mix of growth and death, so the walls and frame are skeletal, while the buttressing and floor are are taken from patterns in nature. Skriker has a huge ass driftwood throne surrounded by greenery, and the mummified(?) remains of giant fairies past line the walls.

Here's the process. Looked great till I put paint on it!

I had such high hopes for this one and then...meh. It was difficult for me to work out, and I don't think it's quite successful but sometimes you have to let things go. Anyway, I think, if I had to summarize this piece, it would be with...

So that's Skriker! A lot of fun to play with and I had a great time! Hope you all enjoyed!